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Donald Trump has tried to strike yet another hush money deal with adult film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to a report.
The former president’s attorneys allegedly sent Daniels an offer where the amount she owed him over a defamation suit would be lowered if she agreed not to make “defamatory or disparaging statements” about him.
The details were revealed in a special report by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who obtained calls, documents and emails about the deal.
“Twenty days before this election, we can report that he is once again trying to pay Stormy Daniels to be quiet,” she said in a special broadcast on Wednesday evening.
In 2016, Trump’s then-attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen paid Daniels a separate $130,000 hush money payment, in order to silence her about an alleged affair 10 years earlier, when Trump was first running for the White House.
That payment was at the center of Trump’s criminal trial in New York this spring. Daniels took the stand at his trial and, on May 30, Trump was found guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over the payment.
His sentencing was originally scheduled for September 18 but is now expected to take place on November 26 – just weeks after the November 5 election.
Separate from the criminal case, Daniels sued the former president for defamation in 2018. She ultimately lost, and was ordered to pay Trump’s legal fees.
In the wake of the criminal verdict, Trump’s Florida attorney then tried to strike “another hush money deal” with the former porn star – involving the money owed in the defamation case, Maddow reported.
In a letter sent in July, obtained by the network, Trump’s lawyers told Daniels’s: “We disagree that a payment of $620,000 would be in full satisfaction of the three judgments.
“However, we can agree to settle these matters for $620,000, provided that your client agrees in writing to make no public or private statements related to any alleged past interactions with President Trump, or defamatory or disparaging statements about him, his businesses and/or any affiliates or his suitability as a candidate for President.”
Citing a call from Daniels’s lawyers, Maddow explained that “this time,” Trump and his attorney were “apparently planning to launder the new hush money payment to Stormy Daniels through the payment of a legal judgment.”
“They would pretend that Stormy Daniels owed less money to Trump than they actually believed she owed if she also signed an agreement to not talk about Trump,” she explained.
Audio of a phone call between Daniels and her attorney reveals him saying: “They want to cut some sort of deal where they silence you.”
Daniels turned down the deal but settled the case for $627,500, MSNBC reported.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told MSNBC that the “purported documents were attained as part of an illegal foreign hacking attack against President Trump and his team”.
The Independent has contacted the spokespeople of Trump and Daniels for more information.
